Space navigation systems use star trackers for guidance and navigation. Presently, large star tracker systems are used that have limited fields of view and use of one or more telescopes to aid in the navigation of the vehicle in question. These star trackers include telescope systems to locate and identify known stars to aid in the determination of pitch, roll and yaw of the vehicle. Star trackers may perform the navigation process in both day and night operation. The time histories of these pitch, roll and yaw measurements is used to correct and update the Inertial Navigation System (INS) in these vehicles.
In some cases, the vehicle can use one telescope on a multi axis gimbal to steer the telescope to a known direction and monitor the position of a bright star. In other cases, the vehicle depends on one rigidly mounted telescope to occasionally view a bright or known star and get the location with that random measurement. This is typically used on smaller vehicles that cannot devote a lot of surface area or volume for multiple telescopes pointed in orthogonal directions.
However, single axis measurements and limited field of view makes these measurements difficult. For this reason, systems were developed that can potentially use multiple views through a single aperture. These are referred to as “shared aperture systems.” Shared aperture systems typically use multiple optical element systems and multiple camera detectors. These systems also use off axis optical systems. Accordingly, shared aperture systems are more expensive, are more complicated, provide less precise optical performance and use more internal volume.
Accordingly, those skilled in the art continue with research and development efforts in the field of light source tracking devices that may view many fields of view simultaneously so that the fields of view may be identified and so that the individual fields of view may be distinguished and processed separately to provide navigation information.